


Humor Me

by PhrancesP



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:52:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhrancesP/pseuds/PhrancesP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phryne turns to Jack to reset her moral compass, and Jack nobly obliges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humor Me

Humor Me

By PhrancesP

(Set immediately after Death by Miss Adventure)

 

(Thank you to Kerry Greenwood for blowing life into Phryne Fisher, and thank you to MIss Fisher's Murder Mysteries for developing the delicate balance between Phryne and Jack Robinson.)

 

“What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference.”

 

            William Shakespeare, As You Like It (Act I, Scene 2)

 

“The time is out of joint.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)

 

            This murder investigation had been particularly wrenching for all of them.   Constable Hugh Collins had had a violent physical reaction to the gruesome crime scene, and had never quite regained his composure.  Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan had concealed her intense grief at the death of her lover, and had suffered through hours in jail, under suspicion for murder.  Miss Dorothy Williams had told lies and had found important evidence, but she had nearly lost her life in the process. The Honorable Phryne Fisher herself had risked her own life to save Dot.  All in all, it was a relief to close the double murder at the factory into a police investigation file.

 

            Which left Murdoch Foyle’s proposal: if Phryne would remove her objections to his parole, then Foyle would finally tell her the truth about Janey’s death. Phryne knew that nothing would bring Janey back, and she knew that Foyle was her murderer, but the truth was very tempting after all of these years.  When Detective Inspector Jack Robinson arrived for their customary nightcap, she turned to him as a sounding board.  She suspected that her need for him went deeper than she could acknowledge, but for now his professional advice would suffice.

 

            Jack read over Foyle’s letter, and Phryne watched him from her seat near the fire. When he finished he looked at her carefully, almost intimately.  His voice was low, but it reverberated over her raw nerves and tightened throat as if it were a physical massage.  She should not have been surprised by what he said; he had already heard about her visit to Foyle in prison, thanks to the Governor.  His eyes were sympathetic, though, and she rose to meet him where he stood by the mantel.  Phryne was surprised to hear the passion in her own voice when she spoke, and the eloquence of her plea for his help. “Tell me not to place myself above the law, not to let a killer loose, because I want the truth.  Tell me there’s a greater good than my own need to know.”

           

            His eyes were sinking into her, seeing underneath her skin and into her soul, and his voice was a caress.  “You never listen to me anyway.”  She almost laughed, relieved, at the stark truth of his words.  “Humor me,” she insisted.  He stood his ground, and drew her back down to earth from the heights of her anxious spiral.  He reminded her of her essence, her core.  “You know what to do.” Phryne absorbed his words and his faith, and released herself into the right decision.  She bent down and put Foyle’s poisonous letter into the fire, where it could be reduced to ashes, dust to dust.  It was not as if she could release Janey so easily, but at least the fire could burn her memory clean and bright.  Foyle would die in prison, taking the truth with him.

 

            Phryne felt the warmth of the fire on her skin as she watched the edges of the letter curl up into flames.  She pressed the seat of the chair next to her as she prepared to stand, but Jack was there first, with a hand under her elbow, pulling her gently up and towards him. His hand slid along her forearm to her hand.  Phryne’s eyes followed her hand, cupped delicately in his larger one, as he raised it to his lips in a courtly, old-world salute.  She traced the imprint of his heart as he breathed it onto her fingertips. Jack was honoring her, in gesture, for choosing to abide by the rules of his world, at least in this matter. It didn’t feel strange or silly when she sketched a faint curtsey of her own. 

 

            Of course, she nearly ruined the moment when she broke into a cheeky grin at the end, but she had to release her giddy relief somehow.

 

            Jack’s smile broke out, too, and Phryne realized that he had been holding back his fear, for her and for what Foyle could do to her. He held her hand in his for a moment longer as he looked at her with the silence of possibility. She took a shuddering breath. She was a shell of herself now, all tension drained away, and with it her strength.  Phryne knew that she could step forward, into his arms, and he would envelop her with his warmth.  He would be her spine, if she wanted that.  But she had not come to this point in her life by leaning on others, and she could not use him and discard him, as she had with other men.  He was her honorable knight, wearing his passion upon his sleeve, while his tongue was weighed down by doubts about his own value.

 

            Phryne released her hand from his, reluctantly. She had relied on Jack to bring her back from the dark edge of reason.  As long as she had doubts of her own, doubts about her ability to give him all that he desired and deserved, she could not tip their balance to the other edge, where her passion would obliterate his reason and manners.

 

            The time was out of joint.  Jack straightened away from her.  It seemed to Phryne that the intimacy of the moment disappeared with one blink of his eyelashes. After an exchange of murmured politeness, they parted at the door.  Phryne turned for her bed, drained but lighter, as a log fell upon the remains of Foyle’s words.

 

 

 

 


End file.
